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Wexler, an early Obama backer and president of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, said he fielded the question frequently — until about two months ago.

“The focus was, ‘Where does the president stand on Israel?’ and to the extent that there were questions, the trip to Israel was a part of that narrative,” Wexler said in an interview. “But that narrative has been answered in the strongest of terms.”

First, Obama took a personal role in ensuring that Israeli diplomats caught in an early September siege of the country’s embassy in Cairo were brought to safety. Then, later that month, Obama delivered a speech at the United Nations strongly condemning the Palestinian Authority’s quest for statehood through a U.N. resolution. After that, Newsweek revealed that Obama had secretly agreed in 2009 to sell 55 bunker-busting bombs to Israel, making good on a request first pursued during the George W. Bush administration.

“Those three items are so powerful in terms of the impressions made in the American-Jewish community that a trip to Israel would be gravy,” Wexler said.

An administration official said not visiting Israel in the first term “isn’t unusual,” but “that doesn’t change the fact that the bilateral relationship is very strong.” The official cited the president’s numerous one-on-one meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Obama’s support in ensuring Israel’s security, including $205 million in aid for a short-range missile defense system known as Iron Dome.

His popularity in Israel does appear on the rise. A May survey of Israeli Jews found only 12 percent thought U.S. policy was pro-Israel and 40 percent viewed it as pro-Palestinian. A survey taken after the U.N. speech showed that 54 percent thought Obama’s policy was favorable to Israel and 19 percent said it was pro-Palestinian. The Jerusalem Post commissioned both polls, but they were conducted by different firms with different methodologies, making direct comparisons difficult.

In America, Obama’s support among Jews has declined over the past three years, mirroring his drop in support among all voters, according to the Gallup Poll. He won 78 percent of the Jewish vote in 2008, and although he is expected to win a majority again next year, some worry he won’t perform quite as well.

A group of Obama’s closest Jewish supporters — including Wexler, senior campaign strategist David Axelrod and Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz — launched an offensive earlier this year to counter Republicans such as presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, who said Obama “threw Israel under the bus.”

“Much of the narrative that was out there was trumped up by Republicans,” Wasserman Schultz said. “I reject the notion that there was widespread concern other than it was from Republicans who cared more about partisanship than Israel. … Presidents go to Israel at some point in their presidency. The president will be no exception.”

David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, said Obama’s trips earlier in his presidency to Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia “only make Israelis want the visit more.” But now Obama should wait until he can advance the peace process, Harris said.

Block disagrees, saying there are many reasons to visit Israel, even if it’s simply to show support for a key ally in a volatile region. Obama has moved the relationship in a positive direction in recent weeks, and a visit would only reinforce the trend, Block said.

“If he doesn’t do it,” Block said, “he is missing an opportunity to underscore that our relationship with Israel goes well beyond simple questions of the peace process, and it leaves him open to criticism that he didn’t go.”

I'm so sick of Israel and all the pandering we have to do to that country. Last I checked, the president was elected by Americans to run the United States of America. Not Israel. President Obama said one very sensible thing to move the peace process forward and those warmongering Israelis (specifically those that think Israel can do no wrong) and their sympathizers here in the US (Republicans) cry "oh, he must hate Israel!" You would think that they really do not want peace for Israel.

Israel is in violation of international law and UN Security Council resolutions because of its illegal invasions and occupations. UN Security Council Resolution 242 calls on Israel to end its occupations because today the acquisition of territory by war is inadmissible. Furthermore, Jewish settlements in occupied Arab land violate the Fourth Geneva Convention which forbids an occupying power from transferring any parts of its civilian population into territories seized by military force. Although Obama initially opposed Israel’s apartheid Jew-only settlement expansion on stolen Palestinian land, he recanted, and vetoed an anti-settlement UN resolution. Now he works feverishly at the UN to prevent a Palestinian State and gave a groveling UN speech 9/20/11: as blogger Xymphora wrote, “When Obama gave his speech, he was naked on all fours, with a leather collar around his neck attached to a steel chain held by a Jew, eating dog food off the floor of the UN. Keep that image in mind.” all

J Street lost all credibility as it opposed Palestinian statehood at the UN. It has been clearly shown by relentless Jewish settlement expansion on stolen Arab land that Israel has no intention of making peace with the Arab/ Muslim world. Israel is perfectly happy to see its US sugar daddy get hit with revenge attacks like 9/11 and go bankrupt fighting endless wars for Jewish expansionism. Since the Israel Lobby has a stranglehold on the US media and politicians, America can never be a Middle East peacemaker. The only answer therefore is international pressure on Israel. It was gratifying to see that UNESCO chose justice over Jewish money. all

Walking talking disaster. The Arab Spring he egged on is a disaster and now revenge killings are running rampant in Libya that the liberal sycophants in the media will not cover. The Kenyan Klown needs to be removed from office next year for everyones sake.

The fact that Obama has not gone to Israel, coupled with the fact that Obama is looking how to fund UNICEF after the announcement that the funding was canceled proves definitely to me that Obama is a M U S L I M .

Most people are sick of Israel, this is the United States, we need to support the programs in the USA not Israel, these people have a long history of usury. Something needs to be done, they are only using the USA for money.

"But domestic distractions piled up"... give me a break. If he spent more time DOING HIS JOB THAT WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE PAY HIM TO DO vs. running around the country making silly political point speeches and sales calls for campaign bucks, he might find the time to mend fences and get more involved with the world situation. Disgusted with his approach to the job? Yes. Satisfied with his efforts? No. Probably the laziest and most irresponsible "teflon" POTUS - in recent memory.

The extent of the effort to pressure American politicians to support Israel is troubling. There are admirable aspects to Israel and there are some shared values. While we should work with Israel at times, our primary attention and effort should be America's interests. Israel is no more monolithic regarding politics than the US is, so one step is to realize that there are a variety of views within Israel on a number of subjects, inlcuding how to achieve peace w/Israel.

Why should the US provide so much aid to a developed country, especially when Israel recently decided to cut its own defense spending? We have our own economic challenges, including funding our military. Plus, they recently discovered natural gas in large quantities.

How are American interests served when 80 members of Congress go off to Israel on an August vacation? Congress has failed this country - can't pass budgets on time, spends so much we are $14 trillion in debt, can't figure out a way to reduce future annual deficits, hasn't passed a plan to streamline first responders' communications in the decade since 9/11, failed to develop a plan as to what to do with nuclear waste over the last 25 years, provides inadequate oversight over the bureaucracy (look at billions in aid wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan and the 500 million at Solyndra - why does Congress only notice after the money is lost???), unemployment is very high, etc., etc. Yet congress has no problem running off to Israel. Is that really more important than our problems?

Israel has insulted the President and the VP. The Israeli gov't announced a building iniitative in occuppied territory when Biden visited in 09 and netanyahu talked down to Obama in a public setting. If they're such friends, why treat America's leaders in such a fashion?

The Israel-lobby-controlled US congress that votes the state of Israel $6 billion of American tax payers money each year in grants, aid and loan guarantees, has now financed the Israeli blockade of Gaza for over five years in a failed attempt to effect a regime change. And in pursuit of this illegal agenda, Israel killed 9 civilians on an aid ship to Gaza, at point blank range.

But the American-Israel lobby has failed, and today’s US withdrawal of funding from UNESCO upon the admittance of the Palestinians as a full member, is the next step in the illegitimate endeavour to topple the elected government in Gaza. A move that smells of panic in an effort to try to prevent five million Palestinians from having a state of their own in compensation for their lands and property expropriated in 1948.

This is known as US democracy, Israeli style, and is certainly not intended to benefit the Palestinians, or the American electorate, or anyone else other than the US-Israeli suppliers of military equipment. They may well profit but at the expense of human life, morality, international law, the Geneva Conventions on Human Rights and, of course, democracy. Meanwhile the international community watches the moves to dehumanise the majority indigenous people of Palestine, and waits.

The way things are going it won’t be long before Israel becomes the only place Obama can visit. Viewing the video of yesterday’s UNESCO vote, it is clear how isolated the US and Israel are becoming. Speaking at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center on 12/10/10, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak pointed out the immediate and clear danger of delegitimization of Israel, a threat that he said undermines Israel’s security no less than Hamas and Hezbollah. He declared that Israel needs political wisdom since “The world is changing in front of our eyes and is no longer willing to accept, even temporarily, our continued control over another people.” He noted that Israel cannot continue to deny another people, numbering in the millions, their aspirations and rights, and that the only solution is two states for two peoples in order to achieve a Jewish democratic state. Speaking, he said, as a former military man and current defense secretary, Barak stated “loud and clear” that there is no contradiction between two states and Israel’s security; on the contrary he said that the two-state solution is a key condition for Israel’s success and that it can be done.all

After 20 years of him listening and nodding to the Rev. Wright, how can any thinking Jew believe Obama wants to go to Israel? Palestine, yes, Israel, not so much. The Pres is convinced that he has the vote of 85% of the Jewish community regardless of a distasteful, to him, visit to Israel or not. So why bother? He also appears to believe that his Wall Street buddies will pony up enough loot for him to run his campaign.

Arabs around the world are demanding freedom, democracy, and human rights. The Arabs most in need are the persecuted Palestinians some of whom are incarcerated in Gaza while others are subjected to repressive apartheid conditions in the West Bank. The sadistic Zionist land-thieves do their utmost to deprive the Palestinians of that which is most important: their dignity. A longstanding al Qaeda complaint against the US has been our support of corrupt Arab dictatorships. We have supported dictators like Egypt’s Mubarak who helped Israel pen in 1.5 million Palestinians in the concentration camp called Gaza and was thus rightfully hated by his people. The Palestinians deserve an Arab Spring too. Peace talks would have taken place if not for Israel’s greed in expanding illegal Jewish settlements on stolen Arab land. Although we may have corrupted various Arab dictators to accept this status quo, their people do not. As these leaders are overthrown, the people are insisting on Palestinian rights since this is the issue of core importance throughout the Arab/Muslim world. We have seen this already in the storming of the Israeli Embassy in Egypt and the protests at the Israeli Embassy in Jordan. The US should support Palestinian statehood at the UN. all

The Arab/Muslim world has long had a peace plan on the table offering peace and normalization of relations with the Arab/Muslim world in return for Israel ending the illegal occupations. Although this plan was endorsed in 2002 by Palestinian President Arafat and the entire Arab/Muslim world including Iran, the Israelis don’t want peace, as shown in the TIME magazine cover article “Why Israel Doesn’t Care About Peace” 9/13/10. Israelis are sitting fat and happy on their stolen land. Israel's ruling Likud Party's charter opposes a Palestinian state. Israel relishes its occupations and its apartheid Jewish settlement expansion defended by American blood and treasure in never-ending wars. Furthermore, Israel is not friendly to peacemakers: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a rabid Zionist in November 1995. all